5 TRUE SCARY STORIES Encounters in the Woods

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Volunteer with a wildlife conservation group. In a nutshell, we
patrolled some pretty out of the way areas and sometimes
stay the night in the forest. In the fall of
twenty fourteen, I was showing two brand new recruits around
this really isolated area. We drove in on an old

(00:23):
logging trail, and by the time we got there it
was nearing dark. The actual spot I was showing them
was about a twenty minute hike. When we eventually got there,
one of them, an eighteen year old female, decided to
come with me, and the other, a nineteen year old male,

(00:43):
stayed in the truck because he said he wasn't comfortable
walking through the woods in the dark. This is volunteer,
so whatever. I walked down to a river with one
of the recruits using flashlights. We took a quick look around,
and then we got back a little under an hour later.
The guy who stayed was looking at us like we

(01:07):
were crazy. He began asking where we went, with a
terrified look on his face. I pointed in the direction
where we went, and he said no and pointed to
the other side of the trail. He told us that
we were walking through the woods back there, as he
pointed into the woods opposite to us. Because he was

(01:29):
a little on edge and it was getting dark, I
assumed that he just saw an animal or something, and
after a few awkward moments, we decided to head back out.
Not much further down the trail, we came across a
fair sized tree in the road that wasn't there before.
He began exclaiming, I told you so. I fucking told

(01:53):
you so. Beginning to feel a little uneasy, I began
to slow down and reach for my door handle to
get out and take a look at our obstacle. When
through the dim light coming from the tail lights of
our truck, I could clearly see someone jumping from the
bush behind us and sprinting for the truck. I began

(02:15):
cursing as I hit the gas and ran our truck
over the tree, sending everything in the cab flying everywhere.
Both rookies were yelling as I sped down the horribly
unkempt logging trail. Eventually I slowed down and we drove
back to the office in complete silence. By the time

(02:36):
we got back it was around one point thirty am.
I called one of the group managers and explained what
had happened. We decided not to call anyone because nothing
extremely illegal happened, nobody was hurt, and it just wasn't
worth wasting our resources to go out there for nothing.

(02:57):
I was called the next day and informed that both
recruits had quit. To this day, I have no idea
what that was about. I chose to believe that it
was just some late night logger who was just as
surprised as we were. That's the only explanation that lets
me sleep at night. When I was six years old,

(03:27):
my favorite thing to do was explore the woods by
my house. I never went into the thicket alone. My
friend Ethan liked to join me, but sometimes it was
just me and my neighbor Katrina, who was seven at
the time. To get to the woodsy area, you first
had to cross a large fallen tree over a small ravine,

(03:50):
something that I would never do now, but at that
age I was fearless. My friends and I spent many
days daring each other to cross back and forth over
the tree without using our arms for balance. On one
dreary summer day, I asked Ethan and Katrina to explore

(04:11):
with me, but Ethan wasn't feeling too well. So we
decided to stay home. Katrina and I set off to
the obscure path that led to the fallen tree and
spent a couple of hours in the woods. I remember
the smell of the woods and the damp, slippery feel
of the leaves beneath our feet. It had rained the

(04:32):
night before, and the woods were electric with the sounds
of birds chirping and water rushing through the ravine. We
were entranced. I guess that's why we didn't hear the
man approach us. My first thought was to get the
hell out of there. I knew all about stranger danger,

(04:53):
and I just had this weird feeling about the middle
aged man. Before I could tell Katrina what I thinking,
the man told us that we looked like great explorers
and that he could really use our help. He said
his puppy ran off into the woods and she wouldn't
be able to take care of herself, so it was
really important that we find her soon. I hesitated, but

(05:17):
Katrina has always had a weakness for puppies, so she
agreed to help him look. We set out to look
for the missing puppy, but I just kept getting this
weird feeling every time we walked towards the direction the
man came from. He would tell us that he already
looked over there, and that we should keep to the
other side by